Teaching and Professional Learning

2. Improve professional learning for all teachers, with an eye toward revolutionizing math and science teaching

By the federal government, states, and school districts

• Create and incentivize opportunities for teachers to experience powerful science and math learning themselves

• Cease support for professional development in science and math that is disconnected from teaching practices in schools; replace with investment in strategic and coherent collaborative offerings that link coherent, sustained professional learning, rich in relevant science and math content, to direct practice changes in instruction in schools

• Promote professional learning that engages teachers in data analysis, identification of students’ differentiated learning needs, and assessment of school-level interventions
• Hold school leaders accountable for the professional learning environment in their schools and districts

• Strengthen partnerships with science-rich institutions; use those partnerships to open new learning opportunities for educators

• Invest in sophisticated online professional development systems that facilitate learning communities and cyberlearning by teachers, along with research to enable the improvement of those systems

• Expand the use of master teachers and other strategies that strengthen practice, encourage continuous learning, and improve career satisfaction

By colleges and universities

• Make the cultivation of STEM-capable teachers a university-wide priority, with visible board, executive, and cross-disciplinary faculty leadership

• Cease offering one-off university-designed and delivered professional development; replace with collaborative university-school designed strategies for upgrading teacher practice toward student learning outcomes

• Integrate preservice and ongoing learning by engaging skilled teachers in teacher preparation

• Share resources and assets (such as syllabi, online labs) publicly; encourage use by science and math teachers

By businesses, nonprofit organizations, unions, and other partners

• Build systems that enable teachers to use and contribute to a common knowledge base of curricular material and pedagogical techniques in science and math

• Develop programs that engage teachers in collaborating with scientists, mathematicians, engineers, museum educators, and others

• Provide learning opportunities that enable teachers to experience real-world science and math and apply to instructional improvements

• Create innovative preparation programs and teacher residency programs

By philanthropy

• Support innovative program models for ongoing professional learning in science and math that include assessment of student learning and mechanisms for improving professional learning based on evidence

• Fund research on the effectiveness of different professional learning models and platforms (cyberlearning, partnerships with science-rich institutions, teacher inquiry) on student and teacher performance in science and math